Kenya shaken by new attacks while mourning victims of mall siege

NAIROBI, Kenya — As Kenyans grieved Thursday for the scores killed in an assault on a Nairobi shopping mall, reports of two more attacks in the north of the country underscored continuing security problems.

Kenyan authorities blamed the latest attacks on al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group that claimed responsibility for the Westgate mall siege.

Two police officers were killed when their camp was attacked early Thursday in Mandera, near the Somali border, Kenyan police and Interior Ministry officials said. On Wednesday, militants attacked a police patrol in the town of Wajir, also near the border, killing a civilian bystander.

Al-Shabab's leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, vowed that the attacks would continue as long as Kenya keeps troops in Somalia to support the country's weak government.

"Take your troops out or prepare for a long-lasting war, blood, destruction and evacuation," Godane said in an audio message posted online late Wednesday.

Meanwhile, grieving families held funerals, while others searched for missing loved ones on the second of three days of national mourning for victims of the mall siege. At least 72 people were killed, including five assailants, in the attack that began Saturday and lasted more than three days.

Forensic investigators continued the painstaking search for remains in the rubble of the mall, where three stories collapsed in one section.

The Kenya Red Cross reported Thursday that 61 people remained missing.

Associated Press

FBI agents continued trying to determine identities of victims in the Westgate mall rubble Thursday.